A right-turning dump truck driver struck and killed a school crossing guard at the corner of two of the city’s deadliest roads on Friday morning, police said.
The 63-year-old woman was working the corner of Woodhaven Boulevard and Atlantic Avenue in Queens at around 8 a.m. when the 39-year-old truck driver hit her as he made a right-turn onto Atlantic, according to an NYPD spokeswoman.
Police said the crossing guard, identified in media reports as Howard Beach resident Krystyna Naprawa, died on the scene. Cops have not identified the driver, who remained on the scene and has not been charged.
Naprawa “was a beloved member of the community,” Assembly Member Jenifer Rajkumar told Patch in a statement. Born in Poland, Naprawa started as a crossing guard with the NYPD in 2010, her son-in-law told ABC 7. Locals near where she worked knew her for her warmth and kindness.
“We used to meet up with her all the time, she’d give us hugs and used to always ask about my family,” one neighbor told the station.
Drivers struck and injured 73 school crossing guards between 2012 and 2022, a Streetsblog investigation revealed last month, but city officials have been reluctant to take the issue seriously. Cops charged just one-third of drivers in those 73 cases — mostly with minor traffic violations.
Guards are perpetually mistreated — poorly paid, neglected by city higher-ups and constantly endangered by reckless drivers, Denise Ferrante, the crossing guards chair for the Local 372 union, said Friday.
“We go to work and some of us don’t come home,” she said. “It’s a serious problem, with the speeding cars, people not paying attention, texting — it’s a problem. Now somebody’s dead.”
A 2022 Streetsblog investigation found school streets in the city to be uniquely dangerous, with higher rates of car crashes and injuries than other city streets on school mornings and afternoons.
The corner of Woodhaven and Atlantic — two busy, extra-wide roads — saw 12 car crashes through the first nine months of 2023, leading to seven injuries to motor vehicle occupants and one injured pedestrian, according to city data compiled by Crashmapper.
Ferrante, who has worked as a guard on Staten Island for more than a decade, criticized Mayor Adams for failing to take measures to protect guards like redesigning more streets near schools to make it harder to drive recklessly.
“The Adams administration, no way do they care about all of us,” she said. “They ignore it — it’s like no big deal to them.”
This is a breaking story. Check back for updates.
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